Tuesday, August 19, 2008

With every press release you feel the Football Season is getting closer and closer. CBS finally put together its hieracrchy of NFL Announcing teams, and the list really hasn't changed from last year. There is however a new member that we need to welcome to the "Eye". Dan Fouts, who was not renewed by ABC, has been brought on to do both NFL and SEC games for the network....

CBS had a pretty stellar NFL Season last year and continued to pull past FOX in both game and pregame show ratings. Now that Brett Favre is in the network's conference, those numbers should see an even larger boost this year. The network's schedule for the upcoming season is below, and expect a week one NFL announcing schedule for both CBS and FOX in the coming days.___________________________

does this mean that Fouts will be on the CBS SEC main team or the B-Team?

According to the link SS had in the last thread, Fouts will call "selected college football games, including those for CBS’ “SEC on CBS” broadcasts," so he'll replace Steve Beuerlein opposite Craig Bolerjack. He's got a month to swallow enough SEC cornbread & Kool-Aid like Danielson did.

And once again, proven hall-of-fame announcing vets such as Dick Enberg and Don Criqui have been rendered "chopped liver" in the eyes of CBS Sports.

It's a disgrace how Enberg's been bounced over the years to the #3 team and Criqui's been literally bounced to the "bottom of the barrel" of their NFL coverage. Announcers of their caliber deserve better.

Fox did the same last year to Dick Stockton, bouncing him to the #3 NFL announce team in favor of Kenny Albert (no dis on him; I think he's solid). But mesmells a bit of ageism in the sports divisions at both networks.

I am glad that Dan Fouts has landed on his feet and will be back on-air at CBS this season. The ESPN "Borg" should have never put him on play-by-play with Tim Brant as analyst; it should have been the other way around.

I like a Dan Fouts/Craig Bolerjack pairing, but what happens to Beuerlein? I thought he was good, but it appears the Tiffany Network will let him go now. It wouldn't be a bad idea to drop off Danielson. Verne deserves a better color man than Brad Nessler's old color commentator.

It's too late for Beuerlein to catch on anywhere else, so he would gladly hold onto his #8 NFL color commentary position (same as last year). Why would CBS replace its most vociferous SEC cheerleader (especially after late November of '06) in Danielson with someone who doesn't have the same college football name recognition?